We have a couple servers hosting Citrix VM's. We are planning on adding SAN storage to our network so that we can do the quick migration and high availability thing. The question comes up with deciding what NICs to buy for the servers. We have scads of available pci(e) slots on the servers, so density is not a factor. We're not going to do 10Gbs.
The concerns are gigabit, jumbo frame support (which any old nic is apparently capable of) and making sure none of the processing load is put on the server itself (no softmodem type deal).
I see some nics advertise "copper connection." Is there any benefit to that? What other options should I not compromise on?
Wouldn't it be preferred to have single port nics over dual for redundancy purposes? That's kinda what I gathered from this SF thread.
The San setup we're looking at if anyone's interested:
Clariion: http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/data-sheet/h4097-clariion-ax4-ds.pdf (data sheet) http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6076470 $9679.99
OR
Dell: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/powervault-md3200i/pd?refid=powervault-md3200i&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=1&~ck=dellSearch $10,749 (not configured as printed--baseline 1tb) $12,905.00 (8tb configured)
Managed Switch: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122074 x1 $599 OR http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3334993&sku=C50-2162 x1 $350
Edit: to clarify the intent of the SAN setup, the illustration below shows the added isolated network we are adding on for the storage for the 2 xen servers. We don't (I believe) need a fancy switch, just one with jumbo frame capability, standard management features and vlan capability: